Infinity Stones (Earth-11584)
History "The Infinity Stones are the greatest power in the known universe. Any one of them can cause destruction on a scale of cosmic proportions." The Infinity Stones (also known as the Infinity Gems) are among the greatest powers in the known universe. Crafted near the dawn of time, each one controls, to a certain degree, a fundamental force of the universe. The reason for their creation and their original purpose has been lost to the mists of history, shrouded in legend and myth. What is known for certain is that they were created shortly after the Big Bang (some have speculated that they were created to defeat either the Faltine Entities or the World Devourer Galactus, though this is purely speculation) by the Abstract Entities of the Universe. These were six personifications of the fundamental forces of Creation: Eternity, Death, Infinity, Oblivion, Chaos and Order. Each one of these personifications created one of the six elemental stones, placing a large portion of their inherent power into each stone. Eternity created the Time Stone, Death the Soul Stone, Infinity the Space Stone, Oblivion the Power Stone, Chaos the Reality Stone and Order the Mind Stone. Shortly after their creation, these six stones were separated across the vast distances of the Cosmos, though by sheer happenstance they found their way into our galaxy at some point in the history of the Universe. Despite their vast power, the Living Tribunal judged them to be allowed to continue to exist. The first recorded use of the Stones was the Power Stone, used by the Celestials to wipe out entire civilizations judged to be "unworthy." However, this use was not well documented, and the Celestials themselves disappeared/went extinct eons ago, leaving the truth of the Stones during this time period somewhat hazy. The first true exampled use was of the Reality Stone by the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim. They attempted to use the Stone, also known as the Aether, to alter light into darkness and control the sector of space that would become known as the Nine Realms of Asgard. However they did not fully understand the power at their disposal, and thus could not truly utilize the Reality Stone to its full potential. As such, the Dark Elves were defeated by the Asgardian King Bor, and the Aether was sealed away on Svartalfheim. At some point the Vishanti, the early ancestors of the Masters of the Mystic Arts on Earth, secured the Time Stone through unknown means and placed it in a necklace known as the Eye of Agamotto. The Time Stone was then secured in a vault that would come to be known as Kamer-Taj. Bor's son, Odin, also secured the Space Stone at some point (though he sacrificed a legion of Valkyrie warriors in his attempt to acquire it), placing it in a cube called the Tesseract and hiding it on Earth within the Veil of the Nine Realms to keep it hidden from the rest of the galaxy, as use of the Infinity Stones could attract attention from those with attuned cosmic awareness (or those who had an Infinity Stone of their own.) It is likely that Odin did not know of the Time Stone's location at this point. The Power Stone at some point came to be found on the planet Morag, where a failed civilization tried to use it as a power source and wound up destroying themselves, though not before placing the stone in a dampening Orb for safe handling. The whereabouts of the Soul Stone and the Mind Stone at this time are unknown, but it is known that shortly before relocating much of his forces to the Milky Way Galaxy, the Mad Titan Thanos had acquired the Mind Stone from wherever it was located, and placed it within a scepter of his own design. He also had created a device known as the Infinity Gauntlet to house all of the Gems when he acquired them. The Tesseract containing the Space Stone was eventually found by Johann Schmidt, who used it to develop and power highly advanced weaponry for HYDRA. However the Red Skull, as he came to be known, was completely unaware of the Stone's true power, and when he touched it himself it transported him across space into the area known as Sanctuary, which was controlled by Thanos' army the Chitauri. Red Skull would be placed in suspended animation by Thanos, who was seeking the Stones for himself, to be used at a later date. Unfortunately for Thanos, he could not find a clear way to attack Earth directly, due to the Veil of the Nine Realms protecting it. In the meantime, the Tesseract was found by Howard Stark, who began researching it as a possible source of infinite energy. At some point after this, in the course of Thanos' conquests, he found and adopted a Zehobereian girl named Gamora, treating her as his daughter and heir to his empire. He commissioned her to find the Soul Stone, which had never been found. At some point she did manage to do this, though she failed to inform Thanos of her discovery, instead only telling her adopted sister, Nebula. Several decades passed before SHIELD director Nick Fury turned the Tesseract over to Dr. Erik Selvig, who continued Howard Stark's work. However, Thanos had made contact with the Asgardian Loki, who promised him the Tesseract in exchange for use of the Chitauri army to conquer Earth. Using the Mind Stone already in Thanos' possession, Loki contacted the criminal Taskmaster, who stole the Tesseract and used it to bring Loki to Earth, seeking to build a permanent portal for the Chitauri to invade through (bypassing the Veil of the Nine Realms entirely.) Also at this time, Thanos contracted the space pirate Maelstrom to acquire the Power Stone from Morag, in exchange for a promise to destroy the Inhuman city of Attilan as well as the capital world of the Nova Empire, Xandar. Thanos' plans were thwarted on Earth, however, by the combined efforts of The Avengers in the Battle of New York, defeating much of his Chitauri forces and also costing him his control ship, Sanctuary I. Undeterred, Thanos dispatched the Red Skull back to Earth (having a greater view of its location due to the use of the Tesseract) with the Mind Stone, hopeful that the Red Skull would bring Earth to heel and that he could acquire the Infinity Stone located their, unaware that the Tesseract had been taken to Asgard for safe keeping. Also at around this time on Earth, Doctor Strange discovered the Eye of Agamotto on Kamer-Taj and used its power to defeat the Dread Lord Dormammu, locking him in a Time Loop in order to extract a promise of non-interference in Earth from him. Strange would return the Time Stone to its pedastal in the Mystic Library, but within a couple of years he would again use it to attempt to see into Earth's future, determining that some "Great Disaster" would soon befall Earth, motivating him to find a final solution to deal with the Hulk. While testing her Field Bridge technology to attempt to visit Asgard, scientist Jane Foster was inadvertently teleported to Svartalfheim and uncovered the Aether buried deep in an underground cavern. She absorbed the Reality Stone, which slowly began to eat away at her life force, and also attracted the attention of the leader of the Dark Elves, Maleketh, who used an in with Amora the Enchantress to invade Asgard and attempt to capture Jane, who had been taken there for treatment. Maleketh's attempts were thwarted by Thor and Odin, though at the cost of Odin's wife Frigga. Eager to try and save Asgard from another attack, Thor attempted to use Jane as bait to lure the Dark Elves away from Asgard, though this led him into an ambush from the stronger than expected Dark Elves, resulting in Maleketh taking the Aether for himself. Maleketh attempted to use the Reality Stone to unmake the Nine Realms and beyond, converting light into dark matter and augmenting the power of the Aether with the Field Bridge technology and Amora's magic. However, Thor managed to defeat Maleketh and secure the Aether once again. Shortly thereafter, Balder and the Lady Sif brought the Aether to the care of Taneleer Tivan, the Collector, surmising that it was not wise to keep two Infinity Stones so close together (as the Tesseract was still on Asgard at the time.) Unbeknownst to the Asgardians, though, Tivan was also in the process of trying to obtain the Infinity Stones as well. Behind Thanos' back, he had hired Gamora to track down the Power Stone before Maelstrom could find it. He also sought it out through a middle man on Xandar, who employed the Ravagers under the command of Yondu Udonta. It was Star-Lord who found the Orb first, shortly before being confronted by Korath of Maelstrom's crew. Through a convuluted series of events, Gamora and Star-Lord joined forces with several other outlaws, forming a group known as the Guardians of the Galaxy and bringing the Power Stone to Tivan's museum on the space port of Knowhere. However, before he could pay the Guardians what he promised them, Tivan's assistant Carina attempted to use the Stone to secure her freedom, destroying herself and wrecking Tivan's museum. The Stone was eventually taken by Nebula in the employ of Maelstrom. However when the space pirate discovered the truth of the Stone, he chose to use it himself rather than turn it over to Thanos, planning to destroy his enemies with its power. He nearly succeeded, but the combined forces of the Nova Corps, the Guardians and the Ravagers managed to defeat Maelstrom, with the Power Stone falling into the safekeeping of the Nova Corps. In the aftermath of the Battle of Xandar, Nebula entered the employee of Herbert Wyndham, aka the High Evolutionary. She revealed the location of the Soul Stone to him, which the Evolutionary planned to use as a power source for his "perfect" creation. Meanwhile on Earth, the Red Skull had decided to abandon whatever plans Thanos had made for him to conquer Earth, instead using the Mind Stone both to enhance human individuals (which resulted in the creation of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch) as well as trying to build an artificial intelligence program known as Ultron. Red Skull's plans were derailed by the Avengers, who found the scepter in a hidden compartment of the base located in Sokovia. Examining the data of HYDRA as well as the Mind Stone itself, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner set about trying to perfect the Ultron program, only to use it as a global peacekeeping initiative as opposed to an army of artificially intelligent soldiers. Ultron was eventually created, but went rogue with its newfound sentience, building a rudimentary body out of scraps from Tony's Iron Man suits before using the Internet to escape back to Sokovia. Building several copies of himself, Ultron contacted the Maximoff twins and the Red Skull, revealing the latter to be a Life Model Decoy after destroying it. Ultron and the Maximoff twins began building a new machine, as well as making plans for further improving Ultron's body. For both tasks, they contacted arms dealer Ulysses Klaue, hoping to obtain Vibranium. The trio were confronted by the Avengers during the arms deal, resulting in the Scarlet Witch using her powers to unleash the Hulk on Johannesburg while Ultron made his escape with the Vibranium. He next sought to use the metal to create a new body for himself, as well as creating a new housing for the Mind Stone, in the form of the Android body that would become the Vision. However, before he could transfer his consciousness fully into the new form, Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye intercepted him and stole the Regeneration Cradle the body was being made in, along with the Mind Stone. Back at Avengers HQ, the Vision was created through a combination of efforts by Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, and Thor. Vision, proving his worth by lifting Thor's hammer Mjolnir, was allowed to keep the Mind Stone. Using its power, Vision helped the Avengers destroy Ultron (as well as with help from the real Red Skull) and save the human race from extinction. Elsewhere, Thanos learned of the Red Skull's betrayal and sought to acquire the Infinity Stones himself. He started by searching out the one stone he had true access to, the Power Stone that was contained within the archives of the Nova Empire. He set out his forces for Xandar and began to lay siege to the world. Elsewhere, the Guardians of the Galaxy stumbled upon the High Evolutionary's laboratory on the artificial satellite known as Counter-Earth. It was there that they inadvertently set free the Evolutionary's perfect creation, Adam Warlock, who now possessed the Soul Stone (though even he did not fully understand its abilities, by his own admission). In the course of this action, the Evolutionary saw Warlock as a failure and attempted to destroy him and the Guardians, having little use for the Soul Stone himself (seeing it merely as a power source and nothing more). He failed in this endeavor, with the Evolutionary seemingly dying in the destruction of Counter-Earth and Warlock flying off to Parts Unknown. However, Wyndham opened a hyperspace window to Xandar, just as Thanos was conducting his siege of the planet. With Nebula having rejoined her father (though still harboring motivations of destroying him) Wyndham was forced to answer all the questions he knew about the Soul Stone to the Mad Titan, including Warlock's existence and possible locations. Meanwhile on Earth, the Vision learned more about the abilities of the Mind Stone both through his experiences in dealing with his relationship with the Scarlet Witch, as well as in the Mandarin using his mystical rings of Kun-Lun to duplicate the Mind Stone's mind controlling powers for use on the dragon Fin Fang Foom. While still not fully understanding the Mind Stone, Vision seemed to have greater control over its power as time went on. Elsewhere Thor, who had left Earth in search of information on the Infinity Stones, was captured by the fire demon Surtur in Muspelheim, where he learned that his father Odin had been replaced on the throne of Asgard by the thought dead Loki. Taking Loki with him back to Earth, Thor attempted to bring Odin back to Asgard, only to be attacked by fire demons of Surtur and stranded on a nameless world, which was the home of the Grandmaster's Contest of Champions. Needing Thor to prevent Ragnarok, Odin felt he had little choice and directed Heimdall to use the Space Stone within the Tesseract to try and bring Thor back to Asgard. At first they inadvertently pulled the Korbinite Warrior Beta Ray Bill back to Asgard, but with a second attempt were able to send several warriors to the Grandmaster's planet to obtain Thor and bring him back in time to defeat Surtur and stop the prophecy of Ragnarok. Unfortunately the use of the Tesseract attracted the attention of Thanos, who was able to triangulate the location of Asgard in relative space and bring some of his fleet there to attack the reeling kingdom, with Thanos himself now wielding the Power Stone after his near annihilation of the Nova Corps. Odin used the Tesseract to launch Thor, Loki and Bill towards Earth to warn them of Thanos' intentions, while then sending it along with Heimdall and a nameless Valkyrie to try and keep it from Thanos' grasp, while Odin himself did battle with the Mad Titan. Odin lost the battle with Thanos, resulting in the destruction of Asgard at the hands of Thanos. After sending his Black Order and Chitauri to Earth to acquire the Time and Mind Stones, Thanos traveled to Knowhere himself (accompanied by Ebony Maw) to Knowhere to confront Taneleer Tivan and acquire the Reality Stone, as well as dispatching his daughter Nebula to find the remaining Asgardians and the Space Stone. En route, Thanos repledged himself to his love Death, and even saw a brief vision of her. Upon arriving at Knowhere, Thanos learned of Nebula's betrayal of him and, after killing Tivan and acquiring the Reality Stone, briefly fought with Nebula, Captain Marvel and the Guardians of the Galaxy before defeating them and acquiring the Space Stone. He then used the Reality Stone to transform Nebula into little more than a decrepit corpse that he kept alive simply to suffer. He then traveled to Earth where he met with Corvus Glaive, who had managed to steal the Time Stone from its hiding place in Kamer-Taj. After killing the Vision to steal the Mind Stone, Thanos established a base in Earth orbit, planning his next move. Thanos was confronted on this base by the heroes of Earth and, after the Maw and Glaive were killed by them, fought with the heroes to an effective standstill despite his incredible powers. He then confronted the Keeper of the Soul Stone, Adam Warlock, and after many minutes of exhaustive battle (summoning shades of his fallen warriors to occupy most of the heroes), Thanos acquired the final stone and placed it within his Infinity Gauntlet. After killing most of the heroes of Earth, Thanos was prepared to strike the final blow against the planet (taking inspiration from reading the mind of a time traveler where he had been victorious) but instead found himself tricked by Tony Stark, William Kaplan and Adam Warlock into giving up his physical body and becoming a noncorporeal being to be with the Abstract Entity of Death. Doing this, however, caused the Gauntlet to be unguarded, and his daughter Nebula stole the Gauntlet, launching him straight back into his body. The Gauntlet eventually found its way into the hands of Warlock, who used it to undo Thanos' actions on Earth and eventually to destroy Thanos himself. The Stones were then handed off to the Living Tribunal, who removed them from the Universe where they could no longer be used by anyone. Alternate Timeline In the alternate timeline of Infinity War, Thanos was also successful at acquiring the Infinity Stones, but destroyed Warlock before he could be tricked. He then used the Soul Stone to make Tony Stark (the only surviving hero from the assault on Thanos' platform) immortal as a penalty for his hubris, and then used the combined powers of the Stones to wipe out half of all life on Earth. The Stones' ultimate fate in this Timeline is unknown, though Wiccan suspected that the Living Tribunal may have destroyed them in this timeline as it did in our own. Powers & Abilities All of the Infinity Stones can be used to fire massive bursts of energy that can be harnessed either offensively or to power other devices. Each of the Stones, however, has their own unique abilities inherent to them alone: * Mind Stone: Can control other people's minds and subvert their will power to the bearer's control. It can also be used to contact people across vast distances of space telepathically. It has also been shown to grant sentience and consciousness (such as creating the Artificial Intelligence Ultron) and enhancing the abilities of others (the powers granted to the Maximoff twins), though how it was done in the latter case is as of yet unclear. * Time Stone: As the name implies, the Time Stone can control time in a localized area. It can reverse time over a short period, create closed end time loops with help from sorcery, and potentially could be used to annihilate someone from existence altogether. It has also been shown to be able to see into possible futures, though this is also stated by the Ancient One to be an inexact science. * Power Stone: Can generate and absorb energy at any known level and of any known type. Upon the command of the user, the Power Stone can annihilate entire planets with a simple gesture, given how much energy the stone generates. * Reality Stone: The reality stone can shape and warp the fabric of reality and physics in a localized area around it, though the effects of this appear to be short-term (like the Time Stone, they can be expanded upon through magical or scientific means). This stone appears to be fluid in form, and is the most difficult to control. * Space Stone: Able to open portals across vast distances of space to allow near instantaneous transportation from one end of the universe to the other. Knowledge of the location is required to fully direct the power of the Space Stone. * Soul Stone: The least understood of the six stones, the Soul Stone is capable of granting life eternal to the bearer (or those the bearer chooses to give life to or to take away life from). Also said to contain a pocket dimension known as "Soul World", though this area is even less understood than the Soul Stone itself. Weaknesses The ability to use one stone, let alone multiple ones, is directly proportional to the strength of the life force of the user, as well as their understanding of the Stones various effects and how to harness the power. This means that a low level user, such as the Dark Elves of old, may not be able to fully utilize a Stone to its true potential. Some Stones, such as the Power Stone, can be so overwhelming that they will destroy anyone who tries to use it directly if they are not strong enough (or can find a way to control the energy output, such as Maelstrom did with his Psionic Scythe.) While the Stones are incredibly powerful, they can be affected by outside forces, either to strengthen their power (the Field Bridge technology with the Reality Stone, sorcery with the Time Stone, etc.) or to contain their and focus their power (the Orb for the Power Stone, the Infinity Gauntlet itself). It is possible that the Stones could be destroyed through some unknown fashion. Using a Stone will attract the attention of anyone in the area with a certain cosmic awareness, continued use doubly so. It is this way that Thanos tracked down Odin and the Tesseract, through its use. This also applies to other holders of the Infinity Stones being attracted to one another when in close proximity. The Infinity Stones have been removed from this universe by the Living Tribunal. Whether they could ever be retrieved is unlikely. Film Details The Infinity Stones appear in the following films in the Earth-11584 continuity. * Thor (2011) * Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) * The Avengers (2012) * Thor: The Dark World (2013) * Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) * Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) * Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) * Doctor Strange (2016) * Iron Man 4 (2016) * Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) * Thor: Ragnarok (2017) * Avengers: Infinity War (2018) * Avengers: Infinity (2019) only * Avengers: Infinity Gauntlet (2019) Category:Earth-11584 Category:Earth-11584 Characters Category:Neutral Characters